The Bombay High Court recently upheld an Order passed by the Company Law Board (CLB) refusing to refer disputes, arising from a shareholders agreement, to arbitration. The proceedings before the CLB arose from a dispute between Rakesh Malhotra (Rakesh) and certain members of the Malhotra family for control of the Supermax Group of Companies a…
On 29 September 2014, the European Commission (EC) and the US initiated the seventh round of negotiations for the conclusion of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (the TTIP).1)Delegation of the European Union to the United States, “7th Round of TTIP Negotiations”. Available at:https://www.euintheus.org/press-media/7th-round-transatlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-ttip-negotiations/ The negotiations began in July 2013 after the EC received its…
In an ambitious stride to become the leading maritime hub in the Middle East, the Emirate of Dubai is set to establish the Emirates Maritime Arbitration Centre, which in shorthand will be known as “EMAC”. Plans for the anticipated establishment of the Centre have recently been announced by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the…
By Matthias Scherer and Sam Moss, LALIVE In a judgment dated 7 July 2014, which was made public on 20 August 2014 (case no. 4A_124/2014), the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (the “Supreme Court”) addressed the enforceability of a precondition for arbitration in a multi-tier dispute resolution provision, namely the requirement to submit a dispute to…
Procedural orders rarely become the subject of blog posts, much less the impetus for concerted action among states anxious to control the strategic space on which investment treaty arbitrations unfold. However, a series of orders in Detroit International Bridge Company v. Canada generated controversy when the tribunal steadfastly excluded representatives of the United States from…
On 29 April 2014, the French Cour de cassation made a decision on the criteria a multi-tiered dispute resolution clause (“multi-tiered clause”) should meet to render claims inadmissible if disregarded.1)Cass. com. Medissimo v. Logica, 29 April 2014, n° 12-27.004. In this case, Medissimo, a pharmaceutical company, entered into a contract with Logica, an IT company,…
In an article published recently in The New York Times, entitled ‘Cities compete to be the arena for global legal disputes’, Elizabeth Olson discusses a phenomenon that has been labeled ‘the Battle of the Seats’. This concept refers to the competition between different cities to be considered as ‘arbitration hubs’. Cities all over the world…
On September 1, 2014, the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (“STJ”) issued an important decision recognizing, for the first time, an unreasoned arbitral award in Newedge USA, LLC v. Manoel Fernando Garcia. Notwithstanding challenges to the recognition and enforcement on the grounds that the New York arbitral award purported violated Brazilian public policy due to…
By Resolution of 27 March 2014, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly condemned the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity (A/RES/68/262). The Security Council remained, however, powerless to impose against Russia economic sanctions which all UN member States would have had to implement. In the absence of such “multilateral” sanctions, the European Union (EU) and the…
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and should not be regarded as representative of, or binding upon ArbitralWomen and/or the authors’ respective law firms. While the press has been full lately of a reported backlash against investment arbitration, Switzerland has been making quiet progress in its efforts to update…
I woke up one morning and found myself on the barricades. It probably happened gradually. I just wasn’t paying attention. Nevertheless, here I am. On the barricades. I’m still a bit lost up here. The barricade is definitely outside my comfort zone. No security blanket in sight. Only a discomforting sense of urgency, and a…
On Monday, September 22, Arbitrator Intelligence officially launches! This blog post gives some basic background about the project, explains how to use the site, and asks for your help in fulfilling our “Wish List.” When you are done reading, visit the site here! The goal of Arbitrator Intelligence is to promote transparency, fairness, and accountability…
and Irina Tymczyszyn, Bryan Cave LLP An M&A dispute between Travis Coal Restructured Holdings LLC (“Travis”) and Essar Global Fund Limited (“EGFL”) and related parallel proceedings in England and New York have shone the spotlight back on the issue of summary judgment in international arbitration. The United States District Court for the Southern District of…
and Michael Leathes Among the early words of wisdom expressed by Sherlock Holmes in the first of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 56 novels, A Scandal in Bohemia in 1891, was this classic line: I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit…
A few weeks ago, the day before the Obama Administration and the EU announced dramatic new sanctions against Russia, an international tribunal announced a $50 billion award against Russia in favor of a group of oil investors. The current violence engulfing Iraq has multiple satellite arbitration disputes over oil sales to Turkey. Recent violence on…
Ukraine has a reputation of a country with an imperfect justice system. No wonder that the country is also pictured by many arbitration practitioners as one unfriendly to arbitration, though refusals to grant the leave for enforcement of arbitral awards in Ukraine are relatively rare – 10% and 18% of all requests considered in 2013…
Transparency is one of the hot topics in international law. With governance functions increasingly shifting from the domestic to the international level, transparency is demanded, as Andrea Bianchi and Anne Peters show in their new seminal study, in order to compensate for the lack of a full-fledged international system of checks and balances. Transparency promises…
This past April, the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) held its prestigious biennial conference in Miami, with more than 1,000 people in attendance. Our research team received unprecedented access to collect demographic information and administer a survey. The results offer an unprecedented window into the “invisible college” of the international commercial and investment arbitration…
With hopes that those in the northern hemisphere had a fun summer packed with arbitration-related events for themselves and their families, below are the answers to this year’s summer quiz. The answer keys to the crossword and the word hunt were published in August. While a Ph.d is not required to read the Kluwer arbitration…
and Oleg Temnikov Foreword Designation by a State of a constituent subdivision or agency provided for in Article 25, paragraphs 1 and 3, of the ICSID Convention has recently sparked a debate particularly in terms of the manner in which the designation is made and communicated to the Center. This is the subject of the…
Recently, the Kluwer Arbitration Blog published a post regarding the ongoing saga between the The Clorox Company and the Petroplus Companies. That post sought to answer two general questions: 1) the power of international arbitrators to overturn interim measures granted by Brazilian courts, and 2) the power of Brazilian courts to stay international arbitrations. While…
The debate regarding the extent to which most favoured nation (‘MFN’) clauses in bilateral investment treaties (‘BITs’) can expand the scope of application of such treaties is a well-established and evolving dialogue in investment treaty jurisprudence. However, while the issues around the extension of substantive and procedural protections in BITs have received considerable attention, the…
The very nature of an arbitrator requires that she or he be imbued with the principles of independence and impartiality, qualities that should never be doubted. Nonetheless, there has recently been an increased number of challenges to arbitrators in Investment Arbitrations subject to the procedures of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (the…
The London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) has recently adopted a new set of arbitration rules, which will come into effect on 1 October 2014.The new rules aim to ensure an effective, efficient and fair process. The LCIA reports that its new Director General, Dr Jacomijn van Haersolte-van Hof, thanked those who contributed to ‘the…
